Eric Holder's Most Strident Critics to Welcome Loretta Lynch

Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch (R) listens as U.S. President Barack Obama answers a question after introducing her as his nominee to replace Eric Holder (L) following a ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House November 8, 2014 in Washington, DC.

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

If you don't count the Republican members of Congress, outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder has no more determined critic than Sheryl Attkisson. The investigative reporter, who left CBS News last year and now contributes to the Heritage Foundation's Daily Signal, spent years investigating the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal. Her stories were part of a corpus that convinced the House to hold Holder in contempt of Congress for dodging questions. Just last month, Holder was among the people sued by Attkisson in a case that accuses the federal government of spying on her; she's asking for compensatory damages, punitive damages, and an injunction preventing the feds from conducting "any surveillance" of her.

And later this week, Attkisson will lead the expert testimony on Holder's likely replacement. The Senate Judiciary Committee, which Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley took control of after the Republicans' 2014 wins, has called Attkisson to speak on a panel of witnesses after nominee Loretta Lynch is introduced. Also on the panel:

Catherine Engelbrecht, the president of the voter ID group True the Vote, who accused Holder of a "radical, racialist assault on voting rights."

David Clarke, the pro-gun rights sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wis., who was re-elected last year with the backing of the NRA.

Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, a Georgetown Law professor and Cato Institute fellow who has accused the IRS of targeting constitution-minded educators.

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University professor who called on Holder to resign one year before he actually did so, describing him as President Barack Obama's version of the medieval "sin eater" assigned to "clean the moral record of a dying person by eating bread from the person's chest and drinking ale passed over his body."